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How would EVE break if we removed skills altogether?

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Salpad
Carebears with Attitude
#361 - 2015-10-08 16:05:22 UTC
Xequecal wrote:
It's not an RPG anymore without skills, if everyone can fly and do everything from day 1.


True. Characters differentiated by character skillz, not player skillz, is the defining trait of an RPG-like computer experience (also a tabletop RPG experience, by the way).

The problem is, EVE's skillz don't differentiate characters much. If you train a skill to level 5 you might get a +20% bonus or +25% relative to someone who hasn't got the skill at all, or sometimes less.

Compare that to other skill-based RPG systems and you'll see that their skillz often have much starker effects, so that characters are truly different, specialized into very distinctive roles, rather similar to in primitive class-based systems but much more flexible because you choose several skillz to train instead of just one class to ding up in, so that by your choice of which several skillz to train you construct your own class.

Based on that, I'm unconvinced that much real damage is done by taking away those tiny +25% and +12.5% bonuses.

Ideally you'd want to enable starker differentiation in EVE instead, perhaps by allowing skillz trained up to level 7 instead of 5, but that only raises the bonuess to +35%, +28% and +17.5% in exchange for exceedingly long training times (many years to train most skillz from level 6 to 7), thus accomplishing very little.

I think it's better to just drop the skillz entirely, since they don't do what RPG mechanics are meant to do.
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#362 - 2015-10-08 16:46:01 UTC
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
Dror wrote:
...

So, isn't it predictability that B-Rs are of low plausibility because of JF and the limited availability of capitals? There's no evidence that the possibility of 20B-50B ships effects the accessibility of 1.5B ships. So, if those cheap carriers are still purchased and flown, that's the crux of an interesting, B-R style of meta. The whole is getting interest in these ships. There's only interest if they can be flown.


They can only be flown if you can fund and source them both of which a new player will not be able to do without interacting with the nullsec groups who would promptly stomp all over anyone who buys a bunch of carriers. Accessabilty of 1.5 bil ships is already limited due to the resources required to build them, the locations required to build them and the level of system control required to allow a character to build them and safely move them around. All of which takes a lot of player knowledge let alone character skills.

I also don't think that dropping about £20 for a ship if I can't gather the (now hamstrung since the markets are in chaos) resources required to miraculously build it safely myself somewhere is a 'cheap' option. I personally would be pretty annoyed to have to spend that on top of a monthly sub to fly a 'cheap' ship which will be a huge target for anyone and everyone in the space where it can actually be flown. And a fleet of 20 noobs in carriers would be hotdropped in short order by one of the big groups. Probably the same one that sold them the ships in the first place then followed them out to wherever the noob base is assuming they get the ships there safely in the first place. This is unlikely as new players will have no clue how to safely and quickly move that amount of ships and secure them for use. With the 1.5 bil you are also ignoring the required modules, implants, drugs, fighters etc required to make the carrier hull any use whatsoever.

So we are supposed to imagine a group of 20 players saying 'Hey, let's all get carriers for a battle...', they source the ship hulls etc spending the equivalent of probably £25 each in the process, miraculously get those ships somewhere safely, then go out and find another group to fight which happens to have done just the same thing, all lose these ships in glorious balls of flame and then say 'Hey, that was great! I'm off to buy another ship to do it again!'

That would not be fun for those new pilots. It would be mind-numbingly crushing to their expectations of the game.

Most of these potential critiques are non-congruent with what's already stated. The option of a carrier promotes socialization and interdependence? This is an addition to what is already required by learning the remainder of the game. The idea of losing a carrier effecting "expectations of the game" in a negative manner is based on what? Every post with information about research states that freedom and learning and status are effective. There's a whole game beyond playing with a carrier, and it's obvious what magnitutde of appeal is based on 99% of the economy coming from gameplay.

Methods of getting 1.5B include FW plexing or missions (15hrs. or less if including market play -- and fittings as is shown in the thread). This obviously increases the density in that space for more emergent possibilities. Beyond that, all the gameplay options allow any other "startup" style of funding and even just provide variety to the FW play. There's saving some of that ISK for a mining ship and some semi-AFK productivity. Those are free minerals, ya know, which could support an array of industry entertainment. If the draw is that it seems simple enough foregoing these for a PLEX, the value comes the same as it would from just buying a desk instead of heading out to a forest.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#363 - 2015-10-08 19:19:43 UTC
Salpad wrote:
Xequecal wrote:
It's not an RPG anymore without skills, if everyone can fly and do everything from day 1.


True. Characters differentiated by character skillz, not player skillz, is the defining trait of an RPG-like computer experience (also a tabletop RPG experience, by the way).

The problem is, EVE's skillz don't differentiate characters much. If you train a skill to level 5 you might get a +20% bonus or +25% relative to someone who hasn't got the skill at all, or sometimes less.

Compare that to other skill-based RPG systems and you'll see that their skillz often have much starker effects, so that characters are truly different, specialized into very distinctive roles, rather similar to in primitive class-based systems but much more flexible because you choose several skillz to train instead of just one class to ding up in, so that by your choice of which several skillz to train you construct your own class.

Based on that, I'm unconvinced that much real damage is done by taking away those tiny +25% and +12.5% bonuses.

Ideally you'd want to enable starker differentiation in EVE instead, perhaps by allowing skillz trained up to level 7 instead of 5, but that only raises the bonuess to +35%, +28% and +17.5% in exchange for exceedingly long training times (many years to train most skillz from level 6 to 7), thus accomplishing very little.

I think it's better to just drop the skillz entirely, since they don't do what RPG mechanics are meant to do.


Yes, they do. Nowhere does is it stated how stark the differences have to be.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#364 - 2015-10-08 19:20:33 UTC
Dror wrote:
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
Dror wrote:
...

So, isn't it predictability that B-Rs are of low plausibility because of JF and the limited availability of capitals? There's no evidence that the possibility of 20B-50B ships effects the accessibility of 1.5B ships. So, if those cheap carriers are still purchased and flown, that's the crux of an interesting, B-R style of meta. The whole is getting interest in these ships. There's only interest if they can be flown.


They can only be flown if you can fund and source them both of which a new player will not be able to do without interacting with the nullsec groups who would promptly stomp all over anyone who buys a bunch of carriers. Accessabilty of 1.5 bil ships is already limited due to the resources required to build them, the locations required to build them and the level of system control required to allow a character to build them and safely move them around. All of which takes a lot of player knowledge let alone character skills.

I also don't think that dropping about £20 for a ship if I can't gather the (now hamstrung since the markets are in chaos) resources required to miraculously build it safely myself somewhere is a 'cheap' option. I personally would be pretty annoyed to have to spend that on top of a monthly sub to fly a 'cheap' ship which will be a huge target for anyone and everyone in the space where it can actually be flown. And a fleet of 20 noobs in carriers would be hotdropped in short order by one of the big groups. Probably the same one that sold them the ships in the first place then followed them out to wherever the noob base is assuming they get the ships there safely in the first place. This is unlikely as new players will have no clue how to safely and quickly move that amount of ships and secure them for use. With the 1.5 bil you are also ignoring the required modules, implants, drugs, fighters etc required to make the carrier hull any use whatsoever.

So we are supposed to imagine a group of 20 players saying 'Hey, let's all get carriers for a battle...', they source the ship hulls etc spending the equivalent of probably £25 each in the process, miraculously get those ships somewhere safely, then go out and find another group to fight which happens to have done just the same thing, all lose these ships in glorious balls of flame and then say 'Hey, that was great! I'm off to buy another ship to do it again!'

That would not be fun for those new pilots. It would be mind-numbingly crushing to their expectations of the game.

Most of these potential critiques are non-congruent with what's already stated. The option of a carrier promotes socialization and interdependence? This is an addition to what is already required by learning the remainder of the game. The idea of losing a carrier effecting "expectations of the game" in a negative manner is based on what? Every post with information about research states that freedom and learning and status are effective. There's a whole game beyond playing with a carrier, and it's obvious what magnitutde of appeal is based on 99% of the economy coming from gameplay.

Methods of getting 1.5B include FW plexing or missions (15hrs. or less if including market play -- and fittings as is shown in the thread). This obviously increases the density in that space for more emergent possibilities. Beyond that, all the gameplay options allow any other "startup" style of funding and even just provide variety to the FW play. There's saving some of that ISK for a mining ship and some semi-AFK productivity. Those are free minerals, ya know, which could support an array of industry entertainment. If the draw is that it seems simple enough foregoing these for a PLEX, the value comes the same as it would from just buying a desk instead of heading out to a forest.


So buh-bye all that day one crap. Thanks for finally admitting it.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#365 - 2015-10-08 19:33:24 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Yes, they do. Nowhere does is it stated how stark the differences have to be.

..Does what state? The RPG Development Manual? Research? We've already had this discussion:

Quote:
EVE skills are largely the same. There are a few ways to completely ignore some mechanics, yes. I can choose to go full combat and put nothing into trading.. But take trading. Once you have Industrial I, Trading I and Contracting I, that's largely going to be what you need mechanically to be a market trader. You certainly won't be a titan of industry or anything, but from there on out all the skills are "What I can do now, only more so."

So that's not really an 'opportunity cost', considering your options are to become better at what you've chosen to do... or become better at what you've chosen to do in a different order.

Follow that thread if you like, but I'm not going to argue the existence of infinitesimal opportunity cost in choosing between "Adv. Industry I" vs. "Mass Production II" for the next spot in my skill queue.


Teckos Pech wrote:
So buh-bye all that day one crap.

Is that even stated? Feel free to paraphrase.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#366 - 2015-10-08 21:15:14 UTC
Dror wrote:
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
Dror wrote:
...

So, isn't it predictability that B-Rs are of low plausibility because of JF and the limited availability of capitals? There's no evidence that the possibility of 20B-50B ships effects the accessibility of 1.5B ships. So, if those cheap carriers are still purchased and flown, that's the crux of an interesting, B-R style of meta. The whole is getting interest in these ships. There's only interest if they can be flown.


They can only be flown if you can fund and source them both of which a new player will not be able to do without interacting with the nullsec groups who would promptly stomp all over anyone who buys a bunch of carriers. Accessabilty of 1.5 bil ships is already limited due to the resources required to build them, the locations required to build them and the level of system control required to allow a character to build them and safely move them around. All of which takes a lot of player knowledge let alone character skills.

I also don't think that dropping about £20 for a ship if I can't gather the (now hamstrung since the markets are in chaos) resources required to miraculously build it safely myself somewhere is a 'cheap' option. I personally would be pretty annoyed to have to spend that on top of a monthly sub to fly a 'cheap' ship which will be a huge target for anyone and everyone in the space where it can actually be flown. And a fleet of 20 noobs in carriers would be hotdropped in short order by one of the big groups. Probably the same one that sold them the ships in the first place then followed them out to wherever the noob base is assuming they get the ships there safely in the first place. This is unlikely as new players will have no clue how to safely and quickly move that amount of ships and secure them for use. With the 1.5 bil you are also ignoring the required modules, implants, drugs, fighters etc required to make the carrier hull any use whatsoever.

So we are supposed to imagine a group of 20 players saying 'Hey, let's all get carriers for a battle...', they source the ship hulls etc spending the equivalent of probably £25 each in the process, miraculously get those ships somewhere safely, then go out and find another group to fight which happens to have done just the same thing, all lose these ships in glorious balls of flame and then say 'Hey, that was great! I'm off to buy another ship to do it again!'

That would not be fun for those new pilots. It would be mind-numbingly crushing to their expectations of the game.

Most of these potential critiques are non-congruent with what's already stated. The option of a carrier promotes socialization and interdependence? This is an addition to what is already required by learning the remainder of the game. The idea of losing a carrier effecting "expectations of the game" in a negative manner is based on what? Every post with information about research states that freedom and learning and status are effective. There's a whole game beyond playing with a carrier, and it's obvious what magnitutde of appeal is based on 99% of the economy coming from gameplay.

Methods of getting 1.5B include FW plexing or missions (15hrs. or less if including market play -- and fittings as is shown in the thread). This obviously increases the density in that space for more emergent possibilities. Beyond that, all the gameplay options allow any other "startup" style of funding and even just provide variety to the FW play. There's saving some of that ISK for a mining ship and some semi-AFK productivity. Those are free minerals, ya know, which could support an array of industry entertainment. If the draw is that it seems simple enough foregoing these for a PLEX, the value comes the same as it would from just buying a desk instead of heading out to a forest.


To claim that minerals are free simply discredits anything you have to say about industry and resource gathering. Just how long do you think it takes to mine, refine, gather, haul and construct all those minerals etc into that 1.5 bil carrier you keep mentioning?
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#367 - 2015-10-08 21:24:19 UTC
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
Dror wrote:
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
Dror wrote:
...

So, isn't it predictability that B-Rs are of low plausibility because of JF and the limited availability of capitals? There's no evidence that the possibility of 20B-50B ships effects the accessibility of 1.5B ships. So, if those cheap carriers are still purchased and flown, that's the crux of an interesting, B-R style of meta. The whole is getting interest in these ships. There's only interest if they can be flown.


They can only be flown if you can fund and source them both of which a new player will not be able to do without interacting with the nullsec groups who would promptly stomp all over anyone who buys a bunch of carriers. Accessabilty of 1.5 bil ships is already limited due to the resources required to build them, the locations required to build them and the level of system control required to allow a character to build them and safely move them around. All of which takes a lot of player knowledge let alone character skills.

I also don't think that dropping about £20 for a ship if I can't gather the (now hamstrung since the markets are in chaos) resources required to miraculously build it safely myself somewhere is a 'cheap' option. I personally would be pretty annoyed to have to spend that on top of a monthly sub to fly a 'cheap' ship which will be a huge target for anyone and everyone in the space where it can actually be flown. And a fleet of 20 noobs in carriers would be hotdropped in short order by one of the big groups. Probably the same one that sold them the ships in the first place then followed them out to wherever the noob base is assuming they get the ships there safely in the first place. This is unlikely as new players will have no clue how to safely and quickly move that amount of ships and secure them for use. With the 1.5 bil you are also ignoring the required modules, implants, drugs, fighters etc required to make the carrier hull any use whatsoever.

So we are supposed to imagine a group of 20 players saying 'Hey, let's all get carriers for a battle...', they source the ship hulls etc spending the equivalent of probably £25 each in the process, miraculously get those ships somewhere safely, then go out and find another group to fight which happens to have done just the same thing, all lose these ships in glorious balls of flame and then say 'Hey, that was great! I'm off to buy another ship to do it again!'

That would not be fun for those new pilots. It would be mind-numbingly crushing to their expectations of the game.

Most of these potential critiques are non-congruent with what's already stated. The option of a carrier promotes socialization and interdependence? This is an addition to what is already required by learning the remainder of the game. The idea of losing a carrier effecting "expectations of the game" in a negative manner is based on what? Every post with information about research states that freedom and learning and status are effective. There's a whole game beyond playing with a carrier, and it's obvious what magnitutde of appeal is based on 99% of the economy coming from gameplay.

Methods of getting 1.5B include FW plexing or missions (15hrs. or less if including market play -- and fittings as is shown in the thread). This obviously increases the density in that space for more emergent possibilities. Beyond that, all the gameplay options allow any other "startup" style of funding and even just provide variety to the FW play. There's saving some of that ISK for a mining ship and some semi-AFK productivity. Those are free minerals, ya know, which could support an array of industry entertainment. If the draw is that it seems simple enough foregoing these for a PLEX, the value comes the same as it would from just buying a desk instead of heading out to a forest.


To claim that minerals are free simply discredits anything you have to say about industry and resource gathering. Just how long do you think it takes to mine, refine, gather, haul and construct all those minerals etc into that 1.5 bil carrier you keep mentioning?

It's an inside joke.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Soltys
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#368 - 2015-10-08 23:02:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Soltys
Mara Rinn wrote:
-1st post snip-


While I'd overall agree with some points, but the whole skill system is(at this point) far too deeply entreched in the game to just "let it go" - and causing extra side effects (e.g. t3 sp loss on death, large part of implant market, whole character selling market). What I'd suggest instead is to:

1) make the skill bonuses non-linear; instead of current n% steps (usually 5-5-5-5-5), do something like 8-6-5-4-2. So same total bonus, but spread differently - with level V skill providing that little cherry on top in context of performance. Similarly same applies to indirect bonuses (e.g. bonuses per racial ship level).

2) go through all the skills and related module requirements and relax some (but not all) of those still requiring V to IV when they enable important stuff (certain t2 modules, t2 ships, etc.). Typical examples would be: t2 relic/data analyzers, t2 membranes.

3) go through super-ridiculous skill ranks and adjust some of those (many remembering ancient 2003 times when battleship was the ultimate **** to have)

Jita Flipping Inc.: Kovl & Kuvl
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#369 - 2015-10-09 02:28:41 UTC
Soltys wrote:
2) go through all the skills and related module requirements and relax some (but not all) of those still requiring V to IV when they enable important stuff (certain t2 modules, t2 ships, etc.). Typical examples would be: t2 relic/data analyzers, t2 membranes.
I'm always a little tempted to put this forth as an idea. With the level V of a skill taking as much time as the rest of the levels combined, it certainly feels like it would help.

On the other hand, I don't think we need to keep SP around just to make sure we don't disrupt the Character Bazaar. SP is only entrenched in the game at a cultural level: people 'enjoy' the SP grind, they spend ISK on implants, they buy PLEX for character transfers. On the code end, removing SP is dead simple.

Compared to the misery wrought by multi-month skill queues, should I care if people need to buy ammo with their LP instead of implants? If people find no demand for their throwaway alts on the bazaar? If we need to come up with something other than skill loss to balance T3Cs (not that SP loss really balances them now anyway)?
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#370 - 2015-10-09 10:25:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Dror
The amount listed for the PC gaming demographic is 900M. Every [month*], there are over 18M fresh internet users. Maybe you guys should explain why you believe the game's fresh sub retention is low -- why the game's PCU is declining. I've listed research, so that should obviously be required.

Enjoy.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Soltys
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#371 - 2015-10-09 12:34:53 UTC
There is .... also greedy cash-shopish alternative .... Allow plex to be converted to learning speedup (+100% of basic unaltered speed) for a month. Stacks up to x10.

J/K but ... publishers (particularly these days) love stuff like that.

Jita Flipping Inc.: Kovl & Kuvl
Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#372 - 2015-10-09 17:09:31 UTC
Dror wrote:
The amount listed for the PC gaming demographic is 900M. Every day, there are over 18M fresh internet users. Maybe you guys should explain why you believe the game's fresh sub retention is low -- why the game's PCU is declining. I've listed research, so that should obviously be required.

Enjoy.


Because EVE is more of a hobby than a game.

Comparing it to other games just shows you don't understand the core target user of EVE
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#373 - 2015-10-09 17:23:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Dror
Cidanel Afuran wrote:
Dror wrote:
The amount listed for the PC gaming demographic is 900M. Every [month*], there are over 18M fresh internet users. Maybe you guys should explain why you believe the game's fresh sub retention is low -- why the game's PCU is declining. I've listed research, so that should obviously be required.

Enjoy.


Because EVE is more of a hobby than a game.

Comparing it to other games just shows you don't understand the core target user of EVE

You're projecting. CCP getting randoms on the street for playtesting their game shows clearly that there's no specific demographic. Even if there was, the game's PCU should be increasing or should be staying steady.

Frankly, that sort of reply is obviously unhelful; and it's a worthy suggestion that the mini- ad hominems stay out of the thread.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#374 - 2015-10-09 17:34:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Cidanel Afuran
Dror wrote:
You're projecting. CCP getting randoms on the street for playtesting their game shows clearly that there's no specific demographic. Even if there was, the game's PCU should be increasing or should be staying steady.

Frankly, that sort of reply is obviously unhelful; and it's a worthy suggestion that the mini- ad hominems stay out of the thread.


When you care to respond to my point go right ahead. It's funny how you dismiss any point you don't have a response to as off topic though.

And did you really just say there is no target demographic? Hmm....
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#375 - 2015-10-09 17:50:07 UTC
Cidanel Afuran wrote:
Dror wrote:
You're projecting. CCP getting randoms on the street for playtesting their game shows clearly that there's no specific demographic. Even if there was, the game's PCU should be increasing or should be staying steady.

Frankly, that sort of reply is obviously unhelful; and it's a worthy suggestion that the mini- ad hominems stay out of the thread.


When you care to respond to me point go right ahead. It's funny how you dismiss any point you don't have a response to as off topic though.

And did you really just say there is no target demographic? Hmm....

The reply is coherent. CCP discusses the lowest common denominator and improving that experience.

The point of discussing motivation being objective is that "demographics" are irrelevant. Saying that demographics are relevant requires sourcing.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Loki Yamaguchi
Level 42 Industries
#376 - 2015-10-09 17:51:22 UTC
I have no problem with skills and wouldn't want them gone for one second BUT I do loath the 0-5 level system. IMO there shouldn't be a limit on skills but (as in most RPG systems) just an ever-increasing heavy XP demand to gain the next level.

The best freighter pilot is going to be exactly the same as any other maxed freighter pilot with the current system...that kinda defeats the purpose of skills in the first place and does beg the question, why not just pick a "profession" and be that...done...
Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#377 - 2015-10-09 17:57:37 UTC
Dror wrote:
The reply is coherent. CCP discusses the lowest common denominator and improving that experience.

The point of discussing motivation being objective is that "demographics" are irrelevant. Saying that demographics are relevant requires sourcing.


You didn't even reply. You're comparing EVE to general gaming statistics, which is not something that's relevant. That's my point.

Care to actually reply to it for a change?

Understanding target demographics and customer profiles are keys to literally any business.
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#378 - 2015-10-09 18:04:23 UTC
Loki Yamaguchi wrote:
I have no problem with skills and wouldn't want them gone for one second BUT I do loath the 0-5 level system. IMO there shouldn't be a limit on skills but (as in most RPG systems) just an ever-increasing heavy XP demand to gain the next level.

The best freighter pilot is going to be exactly the same as any other maxed freighter pilot with the current system...that kinda defeats the purpose of skills in the first place and does beg the question, why not just pick a "profession" and be that...done...


the 0-5 system is very useful for that reason. It means that any new player can always aspire to be as good as the longest vet in any given hull that they focus on as the relevant character skills are limited to a subset at all V's. Then it comes down to player skill no matter how long each player has pplayed for. This doesn't however stop another player gaining an advantage by training for the same amount of time but only to level IV's and then having access to more hulls which may or may not give them an advantage.

It brings more choice whilst meaning the new players can always catch up to vets one hull at a time ( or one science skill at a time, hacking ability at a time etc etc)
Loki Yamaguchi
Level 42 Industries
#379 - 2015-10-09 18:24:35 UTC
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
the 0-5 system is very useful for that reason. It means that any new player can always aspire to be as good as the longest vet in any given hull that they focus on as the relevant character skills are limited to a subset at all V's. Then it comes down to player skill no matter how long each player has pplayed for. This doesn't however stop another player gaining an advantage by training for the same amount of time but only to level IV's and then having access to more hulls which may or may not give them an advantage.

It brings more choice whilst meaning the new players can always catch up to vets one hull at a time ( or one science skill at a time, hacking ability at a time etc etc)


You have a valid point but IMO it's the same as having no skills. I'm sure CCP figured-out that LVL5's XP equivalent represented a target time/$$$ level they wanted ambitious players to have to play to in-order to be maxed but really, if the core philosophy is player skill over time investment then why have them at all as the OP suggests. It's a bit of a tease and borders on the pointless. Yes you need it but really, it seems like a case of it being a good idea back in 01/02 when they were designing the game.
Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#380 - 2015-10-09 18:41:28 UTC
Loki Yamaguchi wrote:
You have a valid point but IMO it's the same as having no skills. I'm sure CCP figured-out that LVL5's XP equivalent represented a target time/$$$ level they wanted ambitious players to have to play to in-order to be maxed but really, if the core philosophy is player skill over time investment then why have them at all as the OP suggests. It's a bit of a tease and borders on the pointless. Yes you need it but really, it seems like a case of it being a good idea back in 01/02 when they were designing the game.


Repeating what I said a few pages back:

We need a time based skill queue because awoxing/stealing/etc. are allowed. We need it because we have a single shard universe.

Actions have consequences in EVE. If you lie, cheat, steal those actions are tied to your name. You can't simply start a new character, have the same skills and have a clean history. If there was no skill queue cheating, awoxing and stealing would be trivially easy. It's the same reason that we will never be allowed to change character names.

If I annoy someone with one of my posts or with something I do in game, they should be allowed to find me and kill me. I shouldn't be allowed to start a new character, biomass this one and have the same skills in game. That is the main reason why the current skill queue is needed.